What Is Customer Relationship Management & Why Does Your Business Need It?
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Definition
In simple terms, customer relationship management, or CRM, is a technology that integrates many aspects of a business’s functions. The goal of a CRM is to grow your business by means of improving relationships and interactions with customers. Customers are the most important part of a business — without them, the business wouldn’t exist! So naturally, maintaining and nurturing customer relationships is an essential part of running a business.
However, many businesses don’t have CRM technology — that’s probably why you’re reading this! To learn more about CRMs and why they are so important for your business, read on.
What is CRM software?
Usually, when we refer to CRM, we mean the technology or software used to manage customer relations. Technology streamlines processes and makes your job as a business owner or executive much easier. CRM technologies usually include features that give a full overview of a customer’s experience with your business — from past and current purchases to reviews and service requests. It can help you get new customers, lead existing customers to purchases, and keep them all happy by ensuring great customer service.
What is CRM in marketing?
Marketers use CRM technology a bit differently than other industries or businesses. Rather than focusing on customer service aspects of a business, marketers use CRMs to gain insight into customer behavior through multiple channels. Nowadays, customers don’t just interact with your business in a brick-and-mortar store. They might first see your business on social media, then search for your business on Google to find a phone number, call to find out if a certain product is in stock, go into the in-person store, and then finally complete a purchase online. With a CRM, marketers can track all of that information. Rather than losing a customer after they walk out of the door, by using a CRM, businesses can ensure that their customers get what they want — through the medium they prefer.
CRM: The Marketing and Sales Connection
The goal of every business is to make sales. If you’re doing marketing, that should always be your end goal. So, it would make sense for sales and marketing departments to work together — but they don’t always do. If your business struggles with this, a CRM is a cost-effective, simple solution! A CRM can categorize leads and filter them to the correct department so the marketing team can pursue leads that need a bit more nurturing, and the sales team can go after leads that are likely to close.
A CRM can help departments focus on the correct leads — which saves time and company resources in the long run.
Do I need a CRM?
Your customers contact you using a variety of methods — from email to social media to phone calls. With all of these platforms, it’s easy for customer information and requests to get lost in the shuffle — losing you their business. And even if you could collect all of this information, it would still be difficult to understand how it all works together.
In addition, whether you’d like to admit it or not, your business has silos. How many times have both your marketing and sales departments pursued the same lead?
Why bother struggling with all of this? CRMs pull all of this information together and help to avoid department overlap. Not only can you increase marketing and sales efforts with CRM software, but you can also improve customer service and internal business processes and communication.
Getting a CRM is a no-brainer! Contact us today and ask about our custom-built proprietary CRM software and how it can help your business.